Banks Arcade
11th August 2022
The Cabana, Napier, New Zealand.
Review by Rob Harbers. Photography by Hayley Munro.
Banks Arcade, returning from overseas adventures, are touring in support of their debut album ‘Future Lovers’. They have assembled a crew of fellow travellers that, like an artfully arranged degustation menu, provide a taste of multiple facets of Antipodean metal.
Opening act Pull Down The Sun, from the other side of the island in Whanganui, provided the perfect opening sweetener – a set of solid, punchy, unpretentious crunch, setting the stage for the delights to follow.
Second course, Tamaki Makaurau’s Crooked Royals, brought the energy up a notch, with a freneticism reminiscent of Supergroove, and a twin vocal attack that provided for a range of expression beyond the metal cliches. A tight and impressive unit indeed!
From across the Tasman came The Gloom In the Corner, with their grindcore and disdain for clean vocals. Technical difficulties delayed their taking to the stage, but once these were ironed out, they delivered a set of atmospheric and melodic songs that will be bound to make them some new fans on this side of the ditch.
The lads of Banks Arcade work with a diverse palette of sonic influences, bringing solidly metallic underpinnings together with vocal stylings that, to my ears, were often reminiscent of the emo era, and mixing in a soupcon of hip-hop influence. A couple of the bands that were brought to mind were My Chemical Romance and Linkin Park, although these boys go way heavier than either of them. They’ve been known to describe themselves as the boyband of heavy metal, and this is not as impossible a combination as it might sound! A solid and heavy base to bring in the boys, with the looks that’d threaten to steal their girlfriends’ hearts…
Their set was delivered to a select audience who clearly appreciated it, often singing/banging along and even, at the close, convincing them to extend the set by an extra song – a devoted band of followers! While it can’t be avoided that the crowd was some way short of capacity, with performance of the calibre of this, that’s sure to change as word spreads. As mentioned earlier, they have recently returned from an overseas sojourn, during which they performed at the prestigious Download Festival in the UK, among other venues both in the UK and extensively across Australia (to where they’ll be returning after this series), so word is clearly getting out there.
Should justice prevail, when they next return it’ll be to much larger crowds – the debut album is receiving quite a bit of notice, particularly in the UK, so this could well be the start of something big. Two more gigs before again leaving the country: Hamilton tonight and then Auckland tomorrow, so if you’re in either of those cities, you could do a lot worse than checking them out!!
Were you there at The Cabana for this high energy performance? Or have you seen Banks Arcade perform live somewhere else before? Tell us about it in the comments below!
Set List:
Note: Ambient Light was provided passes to review and photograph this concert. As always, this has not influenced the review in any way and the opinions expressed are those of Ambient Light’s only.
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